This is America.

Donald Glover also known as Childish Gambino released the song 'This is America'. Donald Glover is an American actor, comedian, singer, writer, producer, rapper, songwriter and DJ. The four minute, single-take music video is made up of metaphors about race and gun violence in America. The official video of ' This is America' got up to 20 million views on YouTube, in the video we see many scenes of gun violence while the main character himself, Childish Gambino is dancing around in the foreground.

At the beginning of the video we see Childish Gambino dressed in grey pants without a shirt, this allows viewers to identify with "his humanness", as he raps about the violent contradictions. Due to Gambino being shirtless this implies that he is proud of his race. Furthermore, we witness him gun down a man who is sitting down with a bag tied around his head and this introduces the song as the beat changes. This scene apparently has connotations of the man strumming the guitar looks like Trayvon Martin's father- portrayed by Calvin The Second- plays the guitar. It's a moment that gives a nod to 17- year old Martin, who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman in 2012. As the man returns to be seated with a hood covering his head as Glover strikes a Jim Crow before shooting him. The Jim Crow pose is know to be offensive towards black people through the end of the 19th century before it became associated with the 'Jim Crow Laws'. He was a character popularised by his portrayal of African-Americans as " lazy, stupid and inherently less human and unworthy of integration".

Further on, we see once again Glover address gun violence in the scene of a choir dancing and singing until Donald Glover turns round and shoots them all, this refers to the mass shooting in America which effected millions people across the country. It is possible that this scene refers to the 2015 massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Church in South Carolina. There is definitely a common theme of violence but i think this is important because it makes it clear that the video is based on shootings and gun crime in the USA. Another main theme presented through out the music video is racism. With America's racist history and contemporary disinterest in black lives, that takes the lives of black people, even innocent, church-going black people, and continues to smile and dance as though the violence was unworthy of notice. In the video the main focus is black men. The word 'Black' appears as a racial signifier 28 times in the song this reinforces the division of black and white people. Another connotation of the 'This is America' video is racially biased schools, racially segregated low-income housing that isolates those living in poverty, subcultures that glorify guns and value them. During the church scene it implies a criticism of the pro-gun lobby for making guns accessible that there is no place that black people are safe, not even at church. The ideology of that there are no white people seen in this music video reinforces the main focus of the representation and message of the video.

Through out the video we repeatedly see a group of kids dancing around with Glover himself. According to the Independent newspaper article, these kids are suppose to represent how the world consumes social media and entertainment as the world burns around them. In addition to this the uniform that the kids are wearing is very similar to the uniform worn by South African students wear and also the dance moves originate from South Africa too.

Moreover in the video we get a glimpse of a hooded figure riding a horse, this scene is not obvious as is goes on in the background and Glover himself still remains central of the frame. However there are connotations of this scenery, it refers to the Apocalypse in the bible. In other words, it refers to the end of the world this implies that if the world carries on with the constant violence then the world will come to an end.

The final moments of the video shows Gambino running, terrified, down a long dark hallway away from what looks like white people as he sings to the lyrics of "you just a black man in this world- you just a bar code, ayy". This scene reportedly refers to a part of American culture of slavery and black people running for their lives. The historical context of slavery in America which originated in the 18th and 19th century, it began when a Dutch ship brought 20 American slaves ashore in the British colony and black people was treated horrendously by wealthy people and therefore they tried to run away to save themselves.

I think the moral of 'This is America' video is raising awareness of gum crime to the world and showing physical violence appeals to both main-streamers and explorers because the main-streamer will view the video on social medias like Facebook and YouTube and the explorer, who look for alternative experiences, something that challenges the normal conventions. This may appeal to them because the violence shown in the 'This is America' video is unusual and we are not familiar with seeing this kind of violence as gum crime is a serious and sensitive subject to be raised therefore to see violence like this raises awareness and encourages people to be talking about these issues rather than avoiding them.

The music video was directed by Hiro Murai. The song itself was a nominee for a Grammy at the Grammy awards (2019) for best music video, and won many awards at the MTV Music award (2018) for best choreography, best video with a message, best direction, video of the year and best editing. The filming of the music video is taken as one shot, i think is interesting because this could connote that the flow of incidents and issues are non-stop in connection with the non-stop flow of a single shot in the video as the camera follows Gambino around. Therefore i would consider this music video to be a narrative video rather than a performance, the video tells multiple of stories in a version of one big one. Through out the majority of the video its filmed at a medium close up, i think this was the perfect framing because as much as we focus on Gambino himself, we still get to view what is going on in the background which is important as the background tells us the stories. The binary oppositions in the music video would be the victim vs attacker and living vs death.